Expo

For a parent to outlive her child, a female astro-miner has to answer the question of whether there’s any reason for her to come back to earth, after a two-year tour on the moon.

A female astro-miner, Shona, sits while speaking to her daughter’s doctor via a transparent LCD pad – her daughter, Darla, has passed away and she has no way of seeing her again. Grief stricken with the news, memories of her daughter come flooding in: Darla building a model rocket, stating that it’ll go further than the moon, to wherever her mother goes; Shona firing a different doctor before her tour on the moon base station because he suggested that they stop treatment for her daughter.

Back onto the lunar terrain, it’s clear that Shona makes it a point not to have her radio on while on the field – perhaps to avoid distractions due to the dangerous conditions – and is in stark contrast to her replacement, Paige, who’s a recent graduate from the training program and receives an incoming call from her son. The pain on Shona’s face is apparent as she overhears their discussion and recalls the reason for her tour on the moon was to collect hazard pay – to cover the expensive costs of treatment for her little girl, prescribed by the latest doctor, who delivered the bad news.

As Shona enters the earthbound shuttle, visual alerts of pressure warnings blaze across her helmet visor and alarms start blaring in the cockpit. Shona quickly radios Paige and provides instructions, only to hear Paige reply that she has done this a million times in the simulator – words of little comfort, as it becomes quickly apparent that Paige’s lack of experience will need the steady hand of a veteran, as the ground begins to quake.

The return trip home quickly turns into a rescue mission, after Paige fails to reply to Shona’s last inquiry. Shona exits the shuttle to find Paige unconscious, next to the control dashboard on the lunar terrain, but shortly regains consciousness to be given instructions to go back to base and find the failsafe. The race against the clock is on and the danger has never been greater for an experienced miner waiting for her rookie counterpart to find her footing, in base operations.